Ukrainian intelligence spokesman Andriy Yusov stated that the shooting in Moscow was a deliberate provocation by Putin’s regime, which the international community had warned about.
“This is a conscious provocation by Putin’s special services, about which the international community had warned. The Kremlin tyrant began his career with this and wants to end it with the same crimes against his own citizens,” Yusov told Ukrainska Pravda.
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On the evening of March 22, the shooting attack occurred as crowds gathered for a concert by the Russian rock band, Picnic, at the Crocus City Hall concert center on the outskirts of Moscow.
Several people in camouflage opened fire on the crowd with automatic weapons and threw Molotov cocktails, starting a fire. According to Russian officials, 40 people are dead, and more than 100 others are injured. The building is still burning, and part of the roof has collapsed.
All tickets for the concert were sold out, and up to 7,200 people could have been inside the building. All entertainment and mass events in Russia have been canceled, Russia’s culture ministry has announced.
Two weeks ago, the US Embassy in Russia and the UK Foreign Ministry cautioned about potential terrorist attacks in Moscow.
Russia faced deadly terror attacks in the early 2000s during the Chechen war. In 2002, Chechen militants took 800 hostages at a Moscow theater; 170 died, mostly from narcotic gas used by Russian forces. In 2004, Chechen militants seized a school in Beslan, taking hundreds hostage; the two-day siege ended with over 330 dead, about half of them children. Critics of Putin’s regime claim that the terrorist attacks could have been orchestrated by the FSB.
Read more:
- US Embassy warns its citizens in Russia of possible ‘extremist attacks’ in Moscow
- 8 Embassies, including US and UK, caution against terrorist threat in Moscow
- Official Kremlin admits it’s “in a state of war” with Ukraine for first time
